LINK BUILDING

STRATEGIES THAT MOVE

THE NEEDLE

Arnie Kuenn, CEO, Vertical Measures

@ArnieK #MnSummit

About Your Presenter

• Vertical Measures is a 45 person search,

social & content marketing agency in

Phoenix, AZ

• Instructor for the Content Marketing

Institute & Online Marketing Institute

• Columnist for Marketing Land, Chief

Content Officer & LinkedIn

• Wrote the content marketing book

Accelerate!

@ArnieK #MnSummit

What I’ll Cover

• Most common SEO mistakes we see

• Recovering from a penalty

• Are links still important?

• What doesn’t work

• What does work

@ArnieK #MnSummit

@ArnieK #MnSummit

Most Common Problems We Find?

• Unintentional duplicate content

• Duplicate title and meta tags

• Blocked pages or entire site

• Over optimization of anchor text in

backlinks and footer

@ArnieK #MnSummit

@ArnieK #MnSummit

Another example…• After 5 months of intense content marketing and no results.

– Identified a penalty back in August of 2012

– Duplicate content issue: same text snippet shows up on 259 pages

– There is wide use of duplicate or near-duplicate content in titles and page content

– A big issue: 100% of their image content and 45% of their HTML/text content is hosted externally (not under the domain).

– Lots of spammy anchor text in their backlink profile

@ArnieK #MnSummit

@ArnieK #MnSummit

How to Tell if You’ve Been Affected

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Webmaster Tools - Message

v

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Recovery is possible

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Manual Penalty Recovery

• Removing Links Is Highest Priority

• Be Thorough in Your Link Pruning (Machete time)

• Be Patient & Detailed - Auditing Links Takes Time

• Create a Detailed Disavow File (consider domain level)

• Admit Your Sin, Detail Your Penance, Promise to Never

Do It Again

@ArnieK #MnSummit

@ArnieK #MnSummit

Are Links Still Important?

Recent quotes from the infamous Matt Cutts:

• “…backlinks…are a really, really big win in terms of quality for

search results”

• “…backlink relevance still really, really helps in making sure we

return the best, most relevant, most topical set of search results.”

• “…without links, it is really hard for Google to determine the

quality of the page.”

• “...backlinks still have many, many years left in them ... over time

backlinks will become a little less important ... we will continue to

use links in order to assess the basic reputation of pages and

websites.”

@ArnieK #MnSummit

Are Links Still Important?

Recent quotes from the infamous Matt Cutts:

• “…backlinks…are a really, really big win in terms of quality for

search results”

• “…backlink relevance still really, really helps in making sure we

return the best, most relevant, most topical set of search results.”

• “…without links, it is really hard for Google to determine the

quality of the page.”

• “...backlinks still have many, many years left in them ... over time

backlinks will become a little less important ... we will continue to

use links in order to assess the basic reputation of pages and

websites.”

@ArnieK #MnSummit

What Doesn’t Work Anymore?

• Anything you have to pay for

• Anything you think you can scale

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The Result?

• Link Building got a LOT harder

• Which means it is much more expensive (in

dollars or hours)

• The days of paying a webmaster to link to

your product or services pages are over

@ArnieK #MnSummit

So What Does Work Today?

• Internal Links

• Brand Mentions

• Link Outreach

• Link Attraction

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Internal Links

• Internal links are what make up your website’s navigation.

− Important for usability and visibility

− Internal links tell search engines and your website visitors

what your site is about

− Proper internal linking structure is done for your users

• Use, but don’t abuse, internal text links within content

• Keep footers clean and include a link to sitemap

@ArnieK #MnSummit

Great article on the patent implications here:

http://moz.com/blog/panda-patent-brand-mentions

@ArnieK #MnSummit

Link Outreach

• Hard work, more like a sales job than SEO

• We do this every single day for our clients and have

great success

• We get .edu, .gov, .org links every day

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Link Outreach - What are the Keys?

• Have something worth linking to

• Have something worth linking to

• Have something worth linking to!• Expertise in advanced search commands

• Well crafted outreach emails

• A sales attitude

– link outreach is filled with rejection

– We pay bonuses

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Advanced Search Commands

• INURL:Links

• SITE:ORG

• ALLINTITLE:Resource

• “Association”

• Society OR Association

• -wikipedia.org

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Work On Perfecting Your Emails

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• Find the right contact – take your time

• Consider social media 1st: follow, subscribe, wait and

then contact

• Avoid using the word “link”

• Include all the details – the pitch is everything

• Brainstorm with your team: Turn No’s into Yes’s Meeting

• Follow up

• Test, test, test!

Outreach Best Practices

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Unlinked Brand Mentions

FreshWebExplorer.Moz.com

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Example #1 – Brand Mentions

Tactic

Positive Brand Mention w/o Link

DA 84 PR 7

Live in 2 1/2 Weeks

http://bit.ly/BrandMentions

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GOV’s and EDU’s link out if it makes sense!!

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• Events

• Sponsors

• Interviews

• Student Resources

• Career Resources

• Curriculum Resources

• Alumni Bios

• Historical References

• Boards/Certifications

• Local Government

• Chamber of Commerce

• Electronic Records

• Related Links

• Safety Resources

• Education Resources

• Nutrition Information

• Hero Spotlights

• Veterans

• Non-profits

• Eco-friendly

• Business Directory

• Utilities

• Free Resources

• Travel and Tourism

• Associations

• School/Job/Residence Transfer Information

• Community Involvement

Common Reasons EDU & GOV’s Link Out

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Example #2 – directory listing

Tactic

EDU Links Page

DA 64 PR 6

Live in 1 hour

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What resource and list pages exist in your industry?

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Example #3 – Resource ListsTactic

Resource Page

INURL:LINKS

DA 91 PR 5

March 18 Requested

April 24th LIVE

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Email On 6/20/14

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Other Good Methods

• Write for other blogs or sites (PR)

• Where you have relationships (suppliers & partners)

• Directories (local, industry, etc.)

• The best links:

– Are from trusted sites

– Determined editorially

@ArnieK #MnSummit

Because most of our clients are not the NYY, we strongly

suggest playing MONEYBALL (or Link Attraction)

1 in 4 at bats = hit (a success)

1 in 36 at bats = home run (a big success)

1 in 1,691 at bats = grand slam (viral success)

Getting Links Can Be Fun…

@ArnieK #MnSummit

(

In order to play link MONEYBALL, you need to come up with

hundreds of ideas so you can create fresh, highly converting,

useful content on a frequent basis. AND ATTRACT THOSE LINKS.

@ArnieK #MnSummit

@ArnieK #MnSummit

List All Content Ideas In A Spreadsheet

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VerticalMeasures.com/calendar

Put Together An Editorial Calendar

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@ArnieK #MnSummit

Resource Pages

38 links to this page111 links to this page

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Infographics

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Free Guides, Case Studies & White Papers

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Free Guides, Case Studies & White Papers

@ArnieK #MnSummit

Free Guides, Case Studies & White Papers

Lead generator

Link attractor

Long life span

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@ArnieK #MnSummit

@ArnieK #MnSummit

@ArnieK #MnSummit

@ArnieK #MnSummit

• Yale’s traffic has grown from 40,000 visitors to

150,000 annually

• Leads have grown from 800 to 2,300 monthly!

• Revenue is up by 40% since starting their content

marketing program.

• And according their president Steve Sheinkopf:

“Profitability is up way more than that, because

we eliminated other marketing expenses.”

The Results…

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@ArnieK #MnSummit

@ArnieK #MnSummit

Courtesy of The Sales Lion

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5 MONTHS

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5 MONTHS

4.5 MONTHS

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5 MONTHS

4.5 MONTHS

6.5 MONTHS

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Achieving Success is a Continuous Process

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The Value of Link Attraction?

• Just Discovered Moz.com in last 60 Days

– Stone Temple – 76 links

– Vertical Measures - 166 links

– TopRank - 208 links

– Wordstream – 394 links

– Moz - 920 links

@ArnieK #MnSummit

Shameless Plug

We offer the best content marketing workshops in the

industry and can bring them to you.

@ArnieK #MnSummit

More Traffic. More Leads. More Business.

www.VerticalMeasures.com

Tweet:

@ArnieK’s content marketing book

@AccelerateBook – is FREE on Amazon

Kindle – Today only! #MnSummit

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• @ArnieK may have just given the best link building

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• I am having an amazing day so far at #MnSearch!